NCRI delegation, Ms. Elaheh Azimfar, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and Dr. Maasoumeh Bolourchi, NCRI representative in Germany and Austria, were invited to the seminar by the North-South Center, a European Council body. The seminar took place in the Senate Room at the Portuguese Parliament and its organizers included the European Center for Global Interdependence and Solidarity (North-South Center), the Directorate General of Social Cohesion and the Parliamentary Assembly (Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population) of the Council of Europe, in partnership with the Assembly of the Portuguese Republic and the Gulbenkian Foundation.
The seminar was attended by parliamentarians from the UK, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Greece, Poland, Romania, Russia, Croatia, Slovenia, Algeria and representatives from a number of NGOs, scholars and governmental representatives from different countries including the Netherlands and Greece.
The seminar started its work on Thursday by the President of the Assembly of the Portuguese Republic, Mr. Jaime José Matos da Gama, and then continued in four sessions covering the following issues:
– Challenges for co-development and the role of the players involved
– Co-development and democracy
– Diasporas and co-development
– Refugees and co-development
Ms. Azimfar addressed the issue of Iranian immigrants in her remarks during the fourth session chaired by Ms. Ruth Gaby Vermot-Mangold, a Swiss Parliamentarian and the Chairwoman of the Sub-Committee on Refugees of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Ms. Azimfar briefly reviewed Iranian history and noted that Iranians had always been attached to their land and that migration had been a very rare phenomenon. She said: "The first migration of Iranians took place in the first decade of the 20th century when the newly elected national assembly was bombed under the instruction of the king at the time and many activists seeking freedom were hanged in public. During this period Iranian intellectuals went to the West in order to organize opposition to the ruling tyranny as part of their national duty." She added: "The largest wave of migration and Iranian asylum seekers, which involved millions of Iranians, took place pursuant to 1979 revolution, during the rule of the religious tyranny." Ms. Azimfar then highlighted the role of the Iranian refugees and the Iranian Resistance in exposing the crimes of the Iranian regime and its clandestine nuclear weapons program to which has been of great importance to world peace and security.
Dr. Bolourchi followed Ms. Azimfar and spoke about the problems facing refugees in Germany. She referred to the case of some 100 Iranian political refugees whose status were withdrawn by German authorities and said: "Since 2003 the Federal Bureau of Asylum and Immigration in Germany whose headquarters is in Nuremberg has started revoking the refugee status of the supporters of the People’s Mojahedin of Iran. Among charges against this group of refugees has been affiliation to the PMOI, an organization labeled as terrorist by the EU."
While rejecting the terror label as thousands of parliamentarians across the world have, Dr. Bolourchi called for its immediate removal. She enumerated the restrictions imposed upon those who lost their status which included the benefit of having medical insurance, opening a bank account and other basic requirements for living in a civil society.
Pressures upon Iranian refugees in Germany was seen as being part of a policy of appeasement of the clerical regime, therefore, the NCRI representative in Germany ended her remarks by calling for removal of all restrictions against Iranian refugees and recognition of their rights in that country.